„no need to say goodbye"

still at naruto's place

"Naruto!", Shikamaru shouts at the blonde, Naruto snaps out of his thoughts and finally looks at his friend.

"Oh, gomen, gomen. What was it again?", Naruto uses his cheery voice, trying to sound normal. Shikamaru frowns at him.

"Didn't you notice? Hanako already left.", he points out.

"Oh."

Gomen, Hanako-chan.

Shikamaru sighs once more, "Come with me.", Naruto looks at him cluelessly, "Just come."

—

Naruto and Shikamaru arrive in front of the Leaf hospital.

"Why'd you bring me here?", Naruto asks his friends.

"Just wait."

"Ah! Here she comes.", the doors open and reveal Kurenai.

"Ne? Kurenai-sensei?", Naruto exclaims with shock.

"Yeah."

Naruto moves around, observing at his sensei who was looking quite odd.

"Were you hospitalized for eating too much barbeque?! Your stomach is bigger than Choji's!", he points at her.

"She's pregnant, not fat!", Shikamaru corrects him, "Cripes, you're still obnoxious as ever."

"Huh?", he glances at Shikamaru and looks back at Kurenai, "You mean— she's—"

"Shikamaru, stop coming her so often.", Kurenai tells her student.

"Sorry, no can do. Asuma told me to do so.", Kurenai smiles at his response.

—

A few minutes later, Kurenai walks away from the two teenagers after having a small conversation. Silence took over the two good friends before one of the spoke up.

"Shikamaru, what did Asuma ask you to do?", Naruto asks his friend.

"That child will be my student.", Shikamaru answers.

"Huh?", Naruto looks at him with shock.

"Asuma entrusted that child to me.", Shikamaru looks at him as he think about the last moments of his sensei.

"I heard about Jiraiya-sama.", Naruto looks away sadly, "I lost my teacher, so it's not like I don't understand what you're going through."

"But whining and sulking isn't going to make things better.", Shikamaru looks at him with a stern face as Naruto looks at him with a frown, "We're way past that point in our lives."

"What do you mean?", Naruto asks him.

"My teacher entrusted me with many things. Some important, some petty. All sort of things. You too, right?", Naruto looks away, "In fact, you must have a ton of stuff. So don't you think it's time for us to step up?"

"Time for what?", he asks as he looks at Shikamaru.

"Time for us to become the ones who entrust.", Shikamaru responds, "It's a pain, but we can't keep complaining.", Shikamaru looks at him.

"You'll eventually be the one treating to ramen and you'll be called Naruto-sensei or something."

"We can't stay being brats forever.", Shikamaru walks in front of Naruto and faces him, "If we want to become amazing ninjas like Asuma and Jiraiya-sensei, that is.", he closes one eye.

Naruto looks at him, being encouraged by his friend's words. He remembers his master and smiles.

"You're right. Thanks, Shikamaru."

"Pull yourself together, you have work to do.", Shikamaru shows him the picture of the code.

Naruto grins at him, "Right!"

"Fucking annoying!", their ears perk up as they hear a familiar potty mouth.

"Hanako-chan?", Naruto says.

"Seriously, that woman is troublesome."

They walk to the direction where the voice came from and saw the blue-haired Shinozaki kicking almost all the trees down.

"O-oi! Hanako-chan, are you okay?", Naruto shouts at her.

"Oh, Naruto-kun? Yeah.", Hanako gives a short response.

"Are you mad at me?", Naruto grabs her hand and makes her look at him, catching the girl off guard.

"N-no! Stop being ridiculous.", she pulls Naruto's grip to let her go and stands by Shikamaru's side.

"What's up? Are you guys up to something?" Hanako nudges Shikamaru's side, purposely making it hard to that he'd stumble, which worked.

"Oi!", Shikamaru says, gaining his composure and stands up straight.

"What?", Hanako laughs at his reaction. Meanwhile, Naruto looks at them both and feel something unpleasant in him.

"Yeah, we're going to do something. So come with me.", Naruto grabs her hand and pulls her away from Shikamaru. The Shinozaki stumbles while walking due to the force of Naruto's actions.

"O-oi! Slow down!", Hanako exclaims.

Shikamaru sighs at both of them, "What a bother."

—

Naruto stares at the photograph longer, trying to fugre out what could be possible mean. He held a stern face, in which Hanako is staring at. She looks at him and hopes that her precious friend would able to solve the code.

Hanako looks at his features, it's not everday that you see Naruto, who isn't wearing his usual forehead protector, holding such a serious face, and to be honest, it was

so handsome.

The Shinozaki blushes all over, she attempts to cover her face but it was stopped by a certain blonde holding her hand. Naruto was holding her hand since he was dragged away from Shikamaru. It didn't help her situation at all.

"You haven't said a word. You see something right?", Shikamara says as he points on the photo, "I talk to Tsunade-sama and Kakashi-sensei, but neither of them had any clue.", he tells him as he stands up straight.

"That means Jiraiya-sama probably left this message with you in mind.", he points at Naruto, "No, I'm positive he did."

"There's got to be something there."

Hanako looks at the photo and tries to help but she doesn't have enough knowledge to contribute. She only met Jiraiya once unlike Naruto who has been with him for a longer time. She closes her eyes to rest and just holds Naruto's hand tighter.

"If anything pops in your mind, tell us.", Shiho says, "We are not asking you to instantly decode the message.", she clarifies the young boy.

"There is one thing that has been bother me since I first saw this.", Naruto says as he leans back and lets go of Hanako's hand, crossing his arms in the process.

"What is it?", Shikamaru walks up to him. Hanako looks at Naruto, waiting for his reply.

"Well, there are all these numbers. So what's with this one katakana letter?"

"Huh?"

"Katakana?"

"Where do you see that?", Shikamaru looks at the photo once more, looking for the said letter.

"Righ here.", Naruto points at the number nine on the photograph making Hanako confused.

Isn't that a nine?

"What are you talking about? Isn't that a number 9?", Shikamaru says the exact thoughts of the Shinozaki.

"That's what I thought at first.", Naruto looks up and looks at Shikamaru. Hanako stares at him as he says this and burns all red on her face once more.

What is going on with me?

"But this isn't the number nine.", Naruto says and he looks at Hanako, who was flustered, "O-oi! Are you alright?", Naruto says before he reaches her neck and checks her temperature. The blue-haired girl slaps his hand away before he comes in contact with her skin.

"I-I'm fine. Continue.", Hanako points at the photograph to make his attention go back to the he was doing.

"It's the katakana letter 'ta'.", the blonde says.

"What?", Shikamaru says, "I guess you can look at it like that."

"But I think that's a big stretch.", he continues.

"Uzumaki, what made you think this nine was the katakana letter 'ta'?", Shiho asks Naruto.

"Well, Pervy Sage was writing books all the time.", Naruto starts before stopping himself and looks down at the floor. Hanako pats his back before Naruto continues to talk.

Naruto tells them about Jiraiya being an tuhor and travelling around with him, leading to the fact that Jiraiya wrote the katakana "ta" oddly, that he mistakens it for a nine.

"A pemanship quirk?", Hanako says all of the sudden, causing everyone to look at her.

"That was a habit, huh?", Shikamaru says.

They proceed to talk about how Jiraiya writes. Shiho then goes to get a book and places it in the table.

"This is a sample of Jiraiya-sama's writing.", she points at the similar katakana writing. That was exactly like what was in the photo.

"It's the same!"

"Jiraiya-sama knew that Naruto would remember his habit of writing the katakana 'ta'.", Shiho says.

"So, it was a common link between you both. This message is really to be decoded by you, Naruto-kun.", Hanako says while amazement, shocking the blonde with her expression, he covers his face with one hand as he looks away.

"S-stop looking at me like that Hanako-chan.", Naruto says as he mumbles the end.

"Hmm?", Hanako says with a skeptical look.

I wasn't doing anything!

"Why didn't you mention such an important thing sooner?!", Shikamaru slams his hand on the table, making Hanako flinch in surprise.

"What's the big deal about knowing that it's the letter 'ta'?", Naruto raises his hands and his elbows.

Shikamaru places two fingers on his forehead, trying to think.

"That's it!", he exclaims.

Shikamaru explains that the code is referring them to the book that Naruto read.

"That's right Shikamaru-san! Jiraiya-sama's book must contain a hint.", Shiho informs them.

Hanako walks up to the table and points the numbers.

"Those numbers, they might represent character numbers, line numbers, or page numbers.", she points out.

"Exactly!", Shiho tells her and smiles, Hanako smiles back, "I'm certain they hold the key to the code."

"Naruto, which book is it?", Shikamaru asks him.

"Eto, hm, Make-Out— what was it?", Naruto thinks out loud.

"Well then, how many of Jiraiya-sama's books have been published?", Shikamaru continues to ask him.

"I think it was about four or five.", Hanako says and they look at her confused, "What? Tsunade-sama let me have access to the library."

"Then let's check out all of them.", Shikamaru smiles.

The windows suddenly bursts open.

"It's probably this one.", says a voice coming from Kakashi who was holding a book entitled Make-Out Tactics.

"Ta?!", they all read the first letter, implying that it's probably the book they were looking for.

"Kaka-sensei!", Naruto exclaims.

"It's been on my mind so I decided to stop by when I overheard your voices. I think I caught most of it.", Kakashi says.

"It's good to see you, Kakashi-sensei.", Hanako greets him and he smiles to the Shinozaki.

"This is the book you're looking for.", Kakashi says with conviction.

"Make Out Tactics!", Naruto says, "That's right. That's the one Ero-sennin was working on during our training."

"I see. Only Naruto would've known that.", Shikamaru says, "So Jiraiya-sama did pass the key on to Naruto."

"Uh-huh!", Naruto nods in agreement.

The group in the room discusses about the page numbers on the photograph.

"Let's start with page 31.", Shiho declares, "Flip to that page please."

"Okay, here it is.", Kakashi replies, "Where do we look next?"

"In situations like this, we look at the first character on the page.", Shiho says, "Please read the sentence out loud starting from the top."

Kakashi's face turns into shock, "What?", he looks at the words as his vision blurs, "No, I mean.", he blushes in embarrassment.

"What is it? Hurry up and read!", Naruto exclaims impatiently while stomping his feet.

Kakashi's sweat drops even more, terrified and feeling pressure from Naruto.

"Hurry it up!", that was the last straw for the Shinozaki in the room.

"Honestly Naruto-kun, if you don't stop shouting I will let you eat the book.", Hanako says with a stern voice before walking up to Kakashi, "Give it to me, wussy.", she whispers the last part.

What's so wrong about reading this.

Kakashi quickly hands the book to her. Hanako reads some of the parts in her head before blushing red as a tomato.

Now I know why he's called Pervy Sage.

Hanako clears her throat, knowing that she has to suck it up because she volunteered to put herself in the spot.

"I, uh, really", she swallows a lump on her throat before continuing, "love you."

Naruto's ears perk up at what Hanako is reading before getting flustered.

-

𝐚 𝐟𝐞𝐰 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫

Hanako's knees gave in, letting her sit on the floor looking burnt out. She was blushing from all of the horrible content of that book. The blue-eyed blonde was blushing hard as well. Shikamaru looks at them both, chuckling lowly before diverting his attention to what Shiho was writing.

"I will never do that again.", she threw the book to Kakashi, making it land farther on purpose out of annoyance.

Shiho discusses what she has written, the code reveals "The Real One's Not Among Them"

What does that mean?

Hanako thinks of this as she stands up from the floor, standing next to Naruto.

"We ought to relay this to Lord Fukasaku.", Kakashi informs the group, "He fought with Pain, so he may know something."

"Then let's go right away to Hokage-sama to ask this Lord Fukasaku to come.", Shikamaru says.

"May I come along?", Shiho asks with a small blush on her face.

"Yes, please do, Shiho.", Shikamaru answers.

"Alright! Let's go let Granny know!", Naruto declares.

"Naruto-kun, I think I'll pass.", Hanako says suddenly.

"What, why?", the blonde says with a pout.

"Don't look at me like that!", Hanako says while covering her face, "I'm tired, plus I don't think I'm need there."

I haven't told you what I remember, and seeing Tsunade-sama reminds me of that bastard.

"Aww, c'mon please?", Naruto persists. Hanako bites her lower lip, pondering if she will go or not. Naruto grabs her hand, thinking that it would persuade her even more.

I can't believe Naruto won't drop it, this is really embarrassing in front of everyone.

The girl looks around, seeing Kakashi and Shikamaru slightly smirking and Shiho waiting for a response. Hanako sighs in defeat and raises both of her hands up.

"Fine."

"Alright!", Naruto grabs her hand and pulls her body, causing her to clash with his, "Let's go!", Hanako rolls her eyes before smiling up at Naruto, hugging him slightly before following everyone out of the room.